Dec. 15, 2025 7 AM PT
To the editor: My spouse and I lived in a 120-year-old farmhouse in Altadena that had been landscaped with fireplace prevention in thoughts. We maintained a pea gravel buffer across the raised basis as is now being really useful.
One factor that this text and the research referenced don’t deal with is the truth that the weekend previous to the hearth had been windy, depositing into our yard tree branches and dried leaves from the native oaks and palm fronds from neighbors’ yards (“Early adopters of ‘zone zero’ fared better in L.A. County fires, insurance-backed investigation finds,” Dec. 10). Regardless of our work in cleansing all of that up, we nonetheless misplaced our home to the conflagration.
As everyone knows, a lot stronger winds returned on Jan. 7, which introduced much more dry branches, leaves and palm fronds. As we drove away the night time of the hearth, with the ominous purple glow looming on the horizon, my coronary heart sank on the sight of all the brand new particles that had been deposited alongside the aspect of the home and storage. There was nothing we or our neighbors might have completed in the dead of night and within the midst of the horrific windstorm that may have made a distinction.
“Zone zero” sounds good on paper, however you needed to be there to know that it’s actually out of contact with the situations on the bottom, and due to this fact little greater than an instructional train. Maybe the authors of the research ought to return to the drafting board.
Tom Reilly, Altadena
